Microsoft's Xbox boss admitted "we've lost our way" on PC gaming, but the company wants another chance.

At the Game Developers Conference on Wednesday, Phil Spencer took the stage and reaffirmed that the company sees Windows 10 as the company's big chance to get back its shine and its market leadership.

He also committed to building games for HoloLens, the futuristic augmented reality goggles that Microsoft promised would be out in the Windows 10 time frame.

 "We see this as a full Windows 10 device," Spencer said. 

Microsoft also announced it was giving game makers their first look at a toolkit for integrating Xbox Live into Windows 10 games.

PC gaming used to be synonymous with Windows — games were played on Windows, using the DirectX APIs for graphics, and often controlled with Microsoft mice, keyboard, and hardware.

Then, 15 years ago Microsoft rolled out the first Xbox and everything changed: Suddenly, all of Microsoft's video gaming focus was on the new console. The Xbox franchise, along with games like Halo, became a decent business for the company. But in the meantime, competitors overtook the PC gaming market. For instance, Valve's Steam platform captured the hearts of gamers with a successful app store and integrated social networking features.

Games for Windows Live, an early attempt by Microsoft to bring the social features (and copy-protection against piracy) of Xbox Live to the PC, was buggy, unreliable, and a laughing stock among people who play video games.

Spencer specifically called out the existing Windows 8 App Store, which he acknowledged wasn't a huge revenue driver for any of the developers there, including Microsoft itself. 

The way forward, then, is in changing how Microsoft thinks about its customers: They're not people who play games on Windows PCs, or tablets, or consoles. They're customers of the Xbox Live service. That means that games can and should work across multiple devices, with the same friends list and the same high scores, and people should be able to play each other no matter what device they're on.

"Xbox" no longer means consoles, said Spencer. It means "gaming with Microsoft."

As for HoloLens, Spencer says that it's a natural extension of Microsoft's new philosophy towards Windows 10, and will receive the same level of support and multi-platform cohesion.

The takeaway for the developers at the conference: They can reach a broader audience (and make more money) without having to go through the hassle of developing for multiple screen sizes and operating systems. After all, every single Windows 10 device is going to have the built-in Xbox app.

Source: http://uk.businessinsider.com/windows-10-games-2015-3?r=US

I agree they have lost their way but they can certainly bring it back! Giving windows 10 for free and getting dx12 compatible with so many existing cards are the first steps to do so but they need to being games like MCC to PC to show their full commitment. Yes, they are bringing fable but thats meh at best to me since its a spinoff. I really hope they will bring MCC to PC when Halo 5 comes out for x1 if they really want to show their commitment. 

Also, bring back the Age of series

No thanks to Xbox Live in my PC games. If I have to choose one platform, it's Steam - it's the smallest evil. MS hasn't shown the smallest piece of goodwill towards PC gamers so why should I trust them? If anything, any 'integration' plans they might have for PC games are just going to make PC gaming more difficult, I reckon.

As far as I'm concerned, this is their yearly assurance that PC gaming is still important to them. It's always big words with nothing to back them up.

Well, each day we see another step in the PC direction for Microsoft. It makes sense, PC gaming market is huge, and using XBox Live brand can do wonders. But I cannot shake thar feeling that MS makes all the moves toward leaving the console market, and my guess is that it is not that far off in the future.

MS is stuck between the leader in PC gaming (Valve), the leader in mobile games (Apple) and the leader in console gaming (Sony).  They have no hope in overtaking any of them soon.  It makes sense to combine the platforms, instead of having 3 seperate platforms, none of them in first place.

So are they going to start charging for XBox live service on PC, or are they going to have the XBox One owners complain that they have to pay for the same service PC users get for free?

The latter.

This is what worries me, I don't want to loose my Steam library, I have quite a lot invested in this eco system... and nothing on "xbox" or pure "windows" as far as gaming goes.

I hope that Vulkan takes over DX12 and that we see true platform agnostic games (easy ports to Lunix/SteamOS) so that gaming can move away from Windows! (yeah, desktop Linux has not happened yet, what makes me think gamingOS linux would work?)

I think we will see a gradual merging of the two platforms. (XB1/Windows 10 PC)  XB1 will becore more PC-like, and Windows 10 will become more console-like.

Give windows 10 a "big picture mode" style interface that looks like XB1.  Merge the XBox store and the PC game store into one.  

XB1 will still be the cheapest/easiest way to play the games on your TV with no configuration.  If you want to build a $2000 PC to play the same game, go ahead.

Only 99% PC of gamers play on Windows. What happened to that 1%. I think we lost our way.

MS knows now how important the PC/Console combo is for them and they are present with the Xbox brand in both. This will only mean more revenue and a pretty good growth of the Xbox brand.